


Dead By Morning

by IHaveNeverBeenWise



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Modern AU, Stargazing, genderqueer jehan, meteor showers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-06-10
Packaged: 2017-12-14 12:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/837007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IHaveNeverBeenWise/pseuds/IHaveNeverBeenWise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Combeferre takes his tea and Jean takes hir own, and, “There’s a meteor shower tonight,” he says. “It will be best viewing at around two.” He doesn’t bother to ask if Jean is interested; he knows ze is.<br/>“The roof?” ze asks.<br/>They take a blanket with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dead By Morning

**Author's Note:**

> I managed to write fluff - angst-less fluff. I am proud of this.

It is eleven-forty-one in the evening and Combeferre is exhausted. It had been a long day of lectures followed by an equally long day at work, and he regrets the decision to fill out an application at the diner with every fiber of his being. Usually, Combeferre gets along with people. However, people can be ugly and rude and terrible, and there are days when Combeferre isn’t sure he likes humanity at all, and today is one of those days. Today, his feet hurt and his back aches and his arms are sore from carrying trays. Today, Combeferre has made less than fifty dollars, but he’d waited more than a third of the tables, and he’d lost his old copy of Nietzsche. To be honest, he just wants to sleep.  
He lets himself into the apartment quietly, unlocking the door and slipping into the dark rooms, dropping his backpack on the table by the door. None of the lights are on, but he can make out the silhouette of Jean on the couch, slightly blue in the light of the muted TV. There is a program about black holes playing on the Discovery Channel, but Jean is sound asleep, half-falling off of the cushions.  
Padding across the floor, Combeferre moves behind the couch and drapes himself over the back of it, and rolls so that he is lying behind Jean on the cushions, Jean’s back to his chest. He stretches his arms, moving the aching muscles, and lets himself relax. Reaching out one arm, he gathers the smaller poet close to him so that they lay back-to-chest. Jean doesn’t stir, but ze lets out a mewl in hir sleep and snuggles closer. The feel of another body next to him eases Combeferre’s aching; he always feels better with Jean beside him. There is a warmth in his chest that settles under his heart comfortably, and the tension bleeds from him.  
He winds the fingers of one hand in Jean’s tangled hair, petting in a way that is meant to be soothing. With his other hand, he traces patterns into Jean’s arm and side, skimming over scars and track marks and tattoos and welts from a binder worn too long. Jean Prouvaire is a deeply imperfect person, and Combeferre loves him for it. Burying his nose in the nutmeg-scented sweater Jean is wearing, he allows himself to close his eyes, nuzzling hir neck and tangling their legs together.  
He has almost fallen asleep when Jean wakes up, and he can feel it when ze stiffens for a moment before remembering where ze is.  
“Combeferre?”  
“Yes?” Both of their voices are heavy with sleep.  
“I was going to wait up for you, but you were late.”  
“I know.”  
They fall into silence, but Combeferre has given up on sleep; once he is woken, he is rarely able to fall back asleep. Instead, Combeferre places a gentle kiss to the crown of Jean’s head and then disentangles their bodies. He fumbles with the remote and clicks the TV off, now some program on blue whales. The clock reads one-sixteen.  
“Do you want some tea?” If he is going to be awake, he will at least have caffeine. Jean nods into his shoulder, and Combeferre allows himself a moment of relaxation before forcing himself to his feet and stumbling into the kitchen. Shaking the kettle to see if there’s enough water, he goes about making tea, one cup with English Breakfast and the other with an herbal mixture.  
Jean trails into the kitchen after him, and flips on the light; they both wince until their eyes adjust. The tile counter is cold, but Jean perches on it regardless, hir clothes wrinkled from sleep and from being worn from days on end.  
“We’re filming the movie called Planet of Love,” ze begins, and Combeferre hums appreciatively, sitting in one of the wooden chairs as the water boils to listen.  
“There’s sex of course, and ballroom dancing, fancy clothes and waterlilies in the pond, and half the night you’re a dependable chap, mounting the stairs in lamplight to the bath, but then the too white teeth all night, all over the American sky, too much to bear, this constant fingering, your hands a river gesture, the birds in flight, the birds still singing outside the greasy window, in the trees.  
“Dirty Valentine,” Combeferre responds, and the kettle is boiling. Jean leans to pull it off of the burner, flipping hir hair out of hir eyes as ze pours the water into the mugs.  
Combeferre takes his tea and Jean takes hir own, and, “There’s a meteor shower tonight,” he says. “It will be best viewing at around two.” He doesn’t bother to ask if Jean is interested; he knows ze is.  
“The roof?” ze asks.  
They take a blanket with them.  
The heat of the day had warmed the asphalt; the warmth still lingers, even in the brisk breeze. The night is clear and cloudless, and the moon is waning. Even with the light pollution, the stars are visible, and they are beautiful. They wait for their eyes to adjust to the night, and Jean reaches for Combeferre’s hand. There is a comfortable silence between them, and when the first meteor streaks across the sky, Jean sighs heavily. Combeferre does not ask what is wrong, only kisses hir hand.  
There are no storms of meteors, no thick barrage, but every once in a while, there will be a streak of light. It is nothing extraordinary, nothing so special that it will live on in either of their memories. But in the moment, it is enough.  
Minutes pass, and then more, and Combeferre cannot look away from the sky. The last of the meteors fade away, but neither of them make an effort to move. At some point in the night, Jean begins to speak again, hir own words this time.  
“Melancholy is in the stars tonight, so says the boy looking up at the night, feeling so small and the universe so vast,” Combeferre tears his gaze away from the stars to look at Jean’s face instead, and ze has hir eyes closed.  
“He feels it settle over his shoulders, heavy, keeping him weighed down. And beneath a multitude of stars, he is nothing, he is worthless. And he can’t breathe through the veil, the melancholy like cotton stuffed in his mouth. And there’s no fresh air to be found; it’s all polluted and sullied by grief, so he’ll asphyxiate beneath the stars, and won’t come alive in the morning.” Ze opens hir eyes with the last words, and Combeferre meets his steady gaze with tired eyes.  
“We don’t mean anything,” he whispers between them as if it is a confession, as if it is a prayer formed with his last breath.  
But Jean smiles sadly at him and laces their fingers together. “I know. Comforting, isn’t it?”  
Combeferre doesn’t think agree. Staring at the stars and the universe and the dust from which he came and to which he shall return, he does not feel comforted. Instead, he feels very, very alone.  
They stay until the sun rises.  
They both call in sick in the morning.


End file.
